GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - PlanetMovies Just Got Punk'd Courtesy of U.S. Copyright

Odin · 07-10-2010, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kektex

The sites they took offline were backup a short time later on.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/07/...S-Seizure-Fail

http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharing...t-back-100705/

I am all for getting piracy under control, but what is more worrying in this story is that apparently, this US govt operation managed to get the registrar to seize the domains.

Of course, the registrars are in the US and the sites were infringing US law. But what if later on the US decides it doesn't like porn anymore and forces registrars to pull the plug on all porn domains in US registrars?

It happened with these piracy sites, it's happened with the casino sites and it even happened to a cuban tourism site operated by a non-US national living outside of the US

What if the US controlled ICANN just decides that it doesn't matter if the domain is in a US registrar? Any US govt agency can get ICANN to force a registrar to pull the plug on any domain?

This, IMHO, is bullshit. Do I have to worry now that if a US govt agency tomorrow decides a bondage site is illegal they can just seize my domains because my domains are in a US registrar? Do I have to go looking for a non-US registrar now?

One of those pirate sites just moved to a chinese registrar and regged a new .cc domain. It was backup in less than 24 hours I think.

I am completely with you on everything. But one thing you missed, 2 of the domains WERE NOT in US registrar accounts. One was already in a Chinese registrar, another was with a Canadian registrar. The US Government seized the domains through ICANN.

It seems you obviously grasp the issue, but unfortunately most don't. The US essentially exerted, for the first time in a major way, its authority over the entire TLD system, and more is expected. It is indeed an extremely concerning development for a medium thought to be international and free, to have a single country, seize domains regardless of the TLD, location of the domain, etc, simply because they have access to the root server system through ICANN.

It won't stop piracy one bit, a few more raids and pirate sites will just operate off IPs, most large sites are already talking about. But the precedent it sets for the future is very very concerning as you said.